Growing up, I rarely fit in. I was a reader, an early adopter of technology, didn’t watch tv, abstained from drugs/alcohol/boys and didn’t get fashion and popularity at all. It was painful

Now I have the comfortable identity I wish I had then. Geek. Woman and geek. Or, geekgrrl. I’m so grateful to have found kindred spirits, both locally and across North America online, and life is good.

My daily morning ritual includes a check of all email accounts, facebook, twitter and a couple of different newspapers, all online. If I don’t have time or ability to sit down at my computer, I can do it all via my BlackBerry instead.

I tend to take so much for granted about today’s technology and the Internet. Being always connected, having the Internet always available for information, maps, phone numbers, schedules, etc is really an amazing capability.

I’m grateful for it, and all the technologies that support it. I wonder what the next 20 years will bring?

My sinuses have been achy and throbbing for the last week. I hate not feeling 100% and was thinking from an anatomical perspective, sinuses don’t make sense. So, because it’s how I roll, I googled “What purpose do the sinuses serve?” Answer:
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A variety of theories have been proposed:

The sinuses act as ‘air-conditioners;’ they filter and humidify the air.

The sinuses lighten the weight of the skull.

The sinuses are ‘crumple zones.’ In severe facial trauma, the facial skeleton is crushed; this absorbs energy that would otherwise be transmitted to the cranial cavity and brain. In a similar fashion, automobiles are designed so that the energy from a collision is absorbed by the car body, but the energy transmitted to the passenger cabin is minimized.

The sinuses are resonance chambers (echo chambers tuned to a specific frequency), which change the characteristics of spoken voice.

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I still don’t think they make a lot of sense and would prefer not to have such a frequent point of failure in my life. Not that eliminating them is an option.

For the next few days, I have all of my biological and ‘adopted’ kids under one roof, and this makes me very, very happy.

I wasn’t nearly so comfortable being a parent to toddlers or young children as I am now with teens. If I could have started with this age bracket, I’d have had more than two biological offspring, and instead, I’ve had to ‘adopt’. The youngest accuses me of adopting half of Poulsbo; he exaggerates. Many of his friends, though, do call me mom.

On the left is Ben, my oldest son. He’s tall, smart, handsome, funny, and intensely creative. He lights up a stage in theatre productions and has perfect pitch when he sings in the choir. He dabbles in voice acting and production, another use of his excellent voice. He’s headed off to culinary training in January.

Next to him is Mandy, my stepdaughter. She’s not actually related to me at all, she’s my ex’s wife’s daughter, but she’s a daughter of the heart and I love having her here. She’s brilliant, outgoing, funny, determined, and has a tremendous work ethic. She’s going to Western Oregon University and majoring in biology; she wants to be a cop.

Ashley, Zach’s girlfriend and my ‘adopted’ daughter, is intensely creative and talented, bright, funny, caring and brings out the best in Zach. She’s going to Shoreline Community College for an art transfer degree – and she’s also a musician and an actor.

Zach, my youngest, is tall, smart, handsome, hilarious, mechanically gifted, technically geeky, creative, and treats Ashley like a princess. He’s also going to Shoreline Community College (they live together, with Ben) for a transfer degree in English Education.

Note about Ashley & Zach — with the addition of an accordion and a mandolin this Christmas, they have an entire bandful of musical instruments in their apartment. The aforementioned accordion & mandolin, plus two acoustic guitars, an electric bass, a keyboard, a violin and a clarinet. (I suppose they need brass & drums — give them time.) Any child they have will have no choice but to be musical.

They make the holidays wonderful, adding a level of energy and cheer that is unlike any other. I’m very thankful for them!